High-rise buildings amid shacks in Luanda. President Dos Santo has announced plans to retire amid growing unease among Angolans over deepening poverty despite a recent oil boom.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
Angola’s Dos Santos is buying time. His promise to step down is an attempt to diffuse growing political tensions, as repression continues. He might relinquish his position, but not his power.
Arthur Lewis’ impossible mission was to make possible Kwame Nkrumah’s famous slogan: seek ye first the political kingdom …
Reuters/Sahra Abdi
Nobel laureate and Kwame Nkrumah’s economic adviser Arthur Lewis saw Ghana as a testing ground for his ideas on economic development. But he was met with fierce resistance.
South Africans take their cue from what Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan says about the country’s economic outlook.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
Forecasts are crucial for all economic and business activity. But looking into the future involves uncertainty and risk. Forecasts may be inaccurate, which creates a serious dilemma for policy makers
Most of the world’s poorest people now reside in middle-income as opposed to low-income countries.
Reuters/James Akena
Recent studies show that development aid to poor countries contributes in the long term to their economic growth. But the aid architecture has adapted slowly to a new reality.
Darling of Davos: Christine Lagarde.
EPA/Jean-Christophe Bott
The international conference for the economic recovery of Mali resulted in promises of substantial aid, but the areas targeted fail to address the country’s real needs.
We knew China couldn’t keep growing so fast.
Aly Song/reuters
A group of junior doctors, nurses and healthcare workers will not be employed by the Malawian government this year as it is cuts its wage bill to satisfy its international donors.
The US may not like it, but by devaluing the yuan the People’s Bank of China has done what longtime critics of China’s currency policy have long been clamouring for.
Why the Chinese yuan took its biggest one-day loss in two decades.
Greek demonstrators protested as its government voted to accept the latest austerity conditions. Greece would have been better off exiting the Eurozone.
AAP/New Zulu/Gael Michaud
If Greece exited the Eurozone it would face several years of economic chaos. But it would be the master of its own destiny. The current EU offer will further destroy the Greek economy.
Two faced? More tragedy than comedy in this Greek drama.
Phil Shirley
Backed into a corner as the banks reached the brink, the Greek prime minister may have fashioned some sort of success, and the prospect of something approaching debt relief a little down the line.
As protestors gathered in Athens, professors were wining and dining nearby.
Orestis Panagiotou/EPA